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It had to happen sometime, and it finally did: Alan and I went to the movies Saturday night. Saw “All is Lost.” As the line moved forward, we heard a lot of people ask for two tickets, and be told, “That’ll be $20.”

We got to the head of the line. “That’ll be $15,” the ticket-seller said.

As we walked away, Alan wondered aloud why this movie was apparently priced lower than all the others. I told him to check the tickets. Sure enough, we’d been given the senior discount. Without even asking! We wondered if, perhaps, every single person who cared to watch 77-year-old Robert Redford battle with increasing despair for one hour and 40 minutes that night was a senior, so we just got it by default. I think that might be the answer. It was definitely an old crowd.

But a good movie. I read somewhere that the script was only 31 pages long. The sum total of words spoken wouldn’t fill half a page, single-spaced. The story of how one man, sailing along somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, finds himself in a long, slow battle with the unforgiving ocean would seem to require more of them, but no. Redford is impressive in how he manages to convey the look of desperation, thought and calculation without having to prattle aloud to himself, a la Tom Hanks in “Cast Away.” I was surprised at how affecting it was, and how skillfully done.

The rest of the weekend was the usual — a drink or three Friday night, errands galore Saturday, the aforementioned movie, and then the first concert of the year for Kate’s jazz group. Hers is the creative jazz ensemble, where the rule is that if you show up with an instrument, they’ll figure out a way to fit you in. Sometimes these configurations are downright strange: This cycle, they have three violinists, two guitars, bass, drums and percussion. It helps that the most experienced violinist plays like Jean-Luc Ponty. A very enjoyable ensemble.

I hope all the rest of you had the same.

Bloggage? Sure:

We had to leave Wendy alone today for what turned out to be almost six hours. She was very anxious when we returned, which led me to google the Thundershirt, which means that every site I visit now shows me an ad for the Thundershirt. Neil Steinberg considers the implication of this sort of benign Big Data:

Could facial recognition and GPS and drones all unite into some grand web of repression? Sure, but it would be hard-pressed to top the old Soviet-style informant and jackboot repression. Teens are already bored with Facebook, and it’s easy to see why. There’s only so much Farmville you can play. We like technology, but we insist on it being our choice, or seeming to. You can trace an arc of increasing personal liberty for the past 300 years. A new chip isn’t going to change that. We build anarchy into our systems — the speed limit may be 55, but auto speedometers still go up to 160.

Finally, an illustrated mini-guide to why the world finds hipsters so irritating. After we dropped off Kate at Orchestra Hall, we had about an hour to kill, and went down the block for a drink. I used the bathroom. They were arrayed in the usual way, but hey, not separate by gender:

No, you have a choice. This:

Or this:

Both were occupied, and a man came out of better lighting first. He was wearing sunglasses.

83 responses to “A gray-haired Saturday.”

We wanted to see the movie “All is Lost” on Saturday afternoon but we got too busy with other things. Sunday evening we were supposed to go out to dinner with friends but one of the friends ended up in the hospital, we haven’t heard yet what happened. So our weekend was pretty quiet. I walked 12 miles on Saturday and 8 Sunday. That’s about all I did.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 11, 2013 at 6:44 am

“…wearing sunglasses.” Laughed out loud!

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David C. said on November 11, 2013 at 6:46 am

This is what happens when a few people get together to say gun nuttiness is out of control.

“On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.”

How do children in the inner city with toy guns get mowed down by the police, and a bunch of mouth breathing crackers with real guns don’t.

Deborah, I’d say walking 20 miles in a weekend is a bit more than that’s all.

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Suzanne said on November 11, 2013 at 7:38 am

I went to an opera simulcast last year with a friend who is about 15 years my senior. She asked for the senior discount. I got it without asking, which Made me feel a bit, well, I’m not sure.

There was also a shooting at an ice skating rink in New York over the weekend…over a coat. No one died, but a young man may end up paralyzed.

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coozledad said on November 11, 2013 at 8:06 am

The man from better lighting.

The Girl from stronger flush.

That’s two Ian Fleming novels right there.

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Minnie said on November 11, 2013 at 8:21 am

If it makes you feel better call it a “Wisdom and Endurance Discount”. That’s how a local health food market handles it. I’ll take that 5% when offered, and happily.

A while back, I dragooned our 15 year old high school freshman into watching The Breakfast Club, and this past weekend, she dragooned me into watching one of the bonus features, which was a collection of comments from the cast members (minus Molly Ringwald and Emilio Esteves), and which was enthrealling altogether. And one additional and very pleasant surprise? Friend-of-nn.c Hank Stuever is in there, with lots of insightful commentary (which is to say – I agreed with everything he said!). We’ve had that DVD for who-knows-how-long, and the good stuff was always right there, and my daughter had to lead me to it.

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Dorothy said on November 11, 2013 at 9:06 am

I thought the same thing, Cooz! Well, not exactly the same. I was thinking more like Elmore Leonard. What inquiring minds need to know, though, is this: was there a urinal in each room? I’m guessing you did not investigate; otherwise we would have been told.

We went to Capital University in Bexley on Saturday to check out the Associated Press Exhibit of WWII photographs. It was very moving, and we found ourselves whispering while talking about some of the descriptions of the pictures. Everyone was whispering actually, so it felt like church. The best part was when we overheard a man in a wheelchair telling his (presumed) granddaughter about how his Army unit found a house in Italy during the war with an intact bathroom, and how they rigged a hose and a bathtub full of water so they could take turns using the toilet. He described it as “heavenly.” Just imagine…

And, does goober-nor Goodhair Perry think people will take him seriously now because he’s wearing those fake Dwayne Wade glasses?

Watching Redford act without words in All Is Lost reminded me that he has always had the facial aspect of acting down pat. Remember the scene with the boom mic in The Candidate? One of the funniest bits of movie ever:

Even for a complete and utter doofus like Shrub, this is embarrassing. According to Walker Percy, the Jews are gathering in Asheville NC. Great book, The Second Coming.

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 10:15 am

Dorothy, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a urinal in a unisex bathroom. I went to a hipster coffee place yesterday instead of the usual starbucks, this place has 2 unisex bathrooms that were both occupied when I got there, finally one became available the young man who had been in there an inordinately long time was well dressed, didn’t look like a street person. The room didn’t have the tell tale signs of someone doing thier business, so to speak. The guy wasn’t carrying any bags or backpacks that a change of clothes had been in. I wonder what he could have been doing in there?

Why allied countries in the West spy on each other. And Angela Merkel can get all high and mighty as she GD pleases, Germany spies on the USA too. If the lady was being more honest about the real world, she’d be more offended by being groped by Shrub W than by American spying.

Great Googly Moogly,this is disgusting. This is an example of why it’s smart of GOPers to shut down the government.

I would think female patrons of unisex restrooms would feel more comfortable with urinals insatlled therein. Some guys are pretty careless with their aim.

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Danny said on November 11, 2013 at 11:08 am

My guess is that he was sitting down and pulled out his smart phone and started texting. A lot of people conduct other sorts of business in the bathroom. This is rude when there is a line and then there are those who actually go as far as to engage in phone conversations within the restroom.

“What was that you said, Frank?”

“Oh that wasn’t me, that was the person farting in the stall next to me.”

I frequently have to attend meetings at different facilities this company owns and when usually the bathrooms are not adequate for the capacity of the meeting rooms so there’s waiting. Every freaking time the waiting folks are treated to listening to phone conversations going on in the stalls. I so want to ask the person when they come out if they were multi-tasking.

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 11:55 am

You guys are probably right, the person in the restroom was probably texting or talking on the phone. My first thought was drugs but he looked very clean cut (not that it means anything).

It has started to rain and it’s supposed to continue all day turning to snow this evening. A fine day to curl up with a good book since housekeeping chores etc are already done, I even got a 5 mile walk in. The only problem is I don’t have anything new to read, and I don’t want to purchase an ebook for my iPad. I recently finished “The Circle” by Dave Eggers, I’m mixed about what I thought about it. I’d be interested to know what you thought of it if anyone out there has read it. So, I guess I’ll peruse my bookshelves to find a good book I’ve read before.

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brian stouder said on November 11, 2013 at 12:06 pm

I’ve got several books on my Christmas list, including Diane Ravitch’s new one, Reign of Error.

There’s another about the direct historical linkage (‘relationship’ sounds too benign) between American slavery and big Ivy League colleges that caught my eye, as the author was on Book-TV, and also on Melissa Harris-Perry’s show

…Craig Steven Wilder’s new book Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities.

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Basset said on November 11, 2013 at 12:18 pm

Really looking forward to reading Mark Lewisohn’s latest Beatles history, trying to get it from a locally owned bookstore instead of Amazon though so it may take awhile. “Three Pillars of Zen” is pretty tough going, maybe if I read enough of it on the deer stand I can convince myself that shooting one and not shooting one are pretty much the same.

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beb said on November 11, 2013 at 12:18 pm

I was listening to a talk show on TV over the weekend that got into the complications to woman’s health by the growth of Catholic hospitals. Apparently they have grown enormous over the years forming into large chains and often allying themselves with local community support because they are the only hospital present. But they won’t do any medical procedure that could be considered an abortion or interferes with ovulation. So if a woman wants a tubal ligation she has to find somewhere else to go. If she is suffering a miscarriage, or if the fetus has died already, and so on, the woman has to look elsewhere. If she has been raped Catholic hospitals will not dispense a Plan B pill. So for a lot of the health services needs of woman the only place to go may be several counties over. The question seems to be whether hospitals, regardless of the religious foundations should be required to provide all health services for women. I seem to recall that back in the day there were hospitals which did not treat black people, but civil right legislation forced them to treat everybody alike. Should religious institutions be required to do things against their religion if they are offering services to non-congregants? I would say yes but then I never really regarded Catholics as Christians.

I wonder how Basset did on the deer hunting. A month back I went to southern Indiana for my sister-in-laws’ funeral. The day of the funeral was also Youth Season, a two day event when children under the age of 17 could hunt deer (in the company of an adult) My grand-nephew, aged 10 took down a buck. I’m not sure how many antlers. I hate guns passionately and phobically so I am both appalled that his father let a ten year walk around with a loaded gun, and impressed that he seemed to be damned responsible about doing it.

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beb said on November 11, 2013 at 12:21 pm

Deborah, Project Gutenberg is always a solution. Lots of classics available for downloading, and now available as text, HTML and a couple different eBook formats.

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Danny said on November 11, 2013 at 12:22 pm

Basset, assuming you have not seen it already, if you get a chance, watch “Good Ol’ Freda.” It is a delightful documentary of Freda Kelly, the Beatles secretary who was with them from beginning to end. My wife and I watched a couple of weeks ago on pay-per-view.

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Basset said on November 11, 2013 at 12:24 pm

Beb, thought I got a good one Saturday but turns out I missed him. Didn’t see a one Sunday, just squirrels and a dog.

And Beb — my mother lives in Kentucky, where the governor refused to okay a hospital merger that would leave the Catholics in charge of the only hospitals. For exactly that reason … And as much as I’m growing fond of the new Pope, I hardly see him loosening the strictures on this stuff …

In the history of the Catholic Church, all of this stuff about procreational health issues is relatively new, and none of it has ex cathedra standing. Most American Catholics ignore it. It contradicts what Church fathers like Aquinas and St. Augustine said on the subject of abortion diametrically. Nothing prevents a Pope from issuing new guidelines.

MREs. We have met the enemy and he is us. This is hard to figure. REI sells very tasty dehydrated meals. Why not just buy those for service members?

Charlotte@29: What they told Jack Johnson when he tried to board the Titanic: Wrong color, baby.

How the hell do TeeVee execs figure there is a need to do Bonnie and Clyde over again. The movie was near perfection, I think. And trying to match the performances and star power of Beatty and Dunaway (particularly the nude scene) is clearly a fool’s errand. Hell, they won’t come close to Michael J. Pollard for CW Moss or gene Hackman as Buck Barrow. Estelle Parsons, DDub Taylor, Denver Pyle, Gene Wilder. Good luck y’all.

At one point he mentions that about three or four times as many customers in that store use food stamps as in their other stores. I’m just waiting for someone to get indignant in the comments because everyone knows you’re not supposed to use food stamps for anything fancier than gruel.

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 1:53 pm

Beb, it’s not that I don’t want to BUY an ebook, it’s that I’ve found I really prefer reading the printed versions of books rather than the electronic versions. I find that I make excuses rather than finish ebooks. I don’t know if it’s the scrolling or what?

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brian stouder said on November 11, 2013 at 1:55 pm

Word, Deborah.

Books are made of paper and ink and glue, and authors can inscribe them.

ebooks have many advantages. They’re green. They might help the publishing industry and individual authors because they make it so that printing is not so capital/labor intensive. On my old 2nd gen Kindle (very simplle, yet elegant), I can effectively carry 1000’s of books around, make notes, have bookmarks, share favorite passages with others, etc.

And though I use technology, I am not one to abuse it or to buy into tech fads for the sake of the bright-shiny-object factor. For instance, Twitter is useless to me and probably always will be because I don’t care what everyone had for breakfast.

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Danny said on November 11, 2013 at 2:10 pm

ANd then there is this story to consider with regard to fracking (there would be no Iraniian nuclear talks without fracking):

Well, and indeed – a big nuclear plant expansion in Texas ain’t gonna happen, as the low energy prices fracking has produced has taken the shine (or glow?) off of nuclear power

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Danny said on November 11, 2013 at 2:18 pm

Brian, most experts agree that everything from fracking to nuclear to renewables to elephant dung needs to be part of the solution for the world’s energy needs. I am in the industry and have seen many international market studies.

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Watson said on November 11, 2013 at 2:29 pm

Hey, Deborah, can I ask what kind of walking shoes you wear? I’ve had a hell of a time finding ones that look good and are comfortable for long walks. I know you’d never wear an aesthetically unpleasant model!

I’m at the age where I get this “You poor thing, you didn’t need to ask,” reaction when I ask for the senior discount.

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Sherri said on November 11, 2013 at 2:35 pm

The ACLU of Washington is getting involved with the issue of Catholic hospital expanding and taking over secular hospitals: https://aclu-wa.org/myhealthcare. Here, it’s not just an issue of reproductive health, it’s also an issue of end of life care, as Washington has a Death with Dignity law, which is counter to Catholic teaching.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 11, 2013 at 2:36 pm

What am I missing (probably much) — I came into this story about Jonathan Martin & Richie Incognito ready to despise the latter and sympathize for the former, but am I hearing right that they had thousands of texts between each other?

Over and over I have to remind myself, never assume. Yet assumptions keep tripping me up.

We have a township trustee in this county who laughs and tells me he’s been doing hydraulic fracturing of shale beds since the early 1960s, and directional drilling as long, it’s just that you can bend more sharply and go further horizontally with every passing decade, but the idea that it’s new isn’t credible. The dilemma has been that if you thought the market pressure on fossil fuel hydrocarbons would start to open up alternative energy technologies faster, the Marcellus & Utica plays are sagging those incentives back the other direction. Thanks to our peculiar electoral politics in Iowa, we wasted a certain amount of momentum in ethanol, and even the greenest of environmental activists came away from the ethanol boom displeased with the role of federal incentivizing. We need to support a wide range of approaches (not sure about elephant dung, I think that’s a NEH grant issue), but how far to go for any one industry — solar cells, pebble-bed reactors, etc. — is still a vexed question.

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brian stouder said on November 11, 2013 at 2:46 pm

but am I hearing right that they had thousands of texts between each other?

Now THERE’S a leak from Snowden that would be worth reading!

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Danny said on November 11, 2013 at 2:56 pm

Jeff, no doubt about the vexed-ness of the issue. On the one hand, if we leave it to the not-so-benevolent invisible hand of the “free market,” we’re surely screwed while one the other hand, if we leave it to the public policy of our political institutes, we’re equally screwed by the greedy politicians, lobbyists and special interests.

On walking shoes. I think that Merrel has the best offerings. I hike and walk all the time and like Deborah, I do considerable distances. The two broad categories of shoes I use are the minimalistic ones with no padding and the light, low-top day hiking boots. I’ve had the best luck on long distances (both outback and urban) with the latter. No relative motion between the inside of the shoe and your skin is the key to prevent blisters and chafing. Good socks are a must on long distances.

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susan said on November 11, 2013 at 2:59 pm

Watson @39: I walk 4.5 miles every day, and these are the shoes most comfortable for me, and I’ve tried several other brands. They have good support and are made of leather, so last longer than the possibly lighter-weight mesh variety walking shoe. AND they come in different widths, including D and EE.

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Brandon said on November 11, 2013 at 3:14 pm

Anything is preferable to nuclear power. But the abundance of natural gas and oil attributed to fracking is illusory.
==
As for the movies: Gravity, Captain Phillips, and All is Lost are probably all well-made adventure films but none captures my interest. Two-thousand-thirteen was a bad year for movies, most egregiously The Lone Ranger, but I enjoyed Monsters University, The Heat, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and Turbo.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 11, 2013 at 3:24 pm

Merrell Moab hikers are what I wore at Philmont this summer, almost 90 miles over ten days and they held up beautifully. Hi-Tecs cushion my feet better, but are heavier.

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LAMary said on November 11, 2013 at 3:27 pm

New Balance has worked for me. So have Merrels.

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coozledad said on November 11, 2013 at 3:34 pm

Brandon:Humans are not intelligent enough to keep their drinking water pure. They’re not even intelligent enough to stop slaughtering each other and preaching the virtues of slaughter.

What the fracking people are ultimately after is the dismantling of any environmental regulation. One of the side benefits for these grossly evil fucks is the commodification of potable water, which will ultimately be much more precious than automotive fuel, or fuel to warm up some fat arse while it lounges in front of a tube.

There’s also the apocalyptic strain in rightwad politics that says we must fuck the earth over before jeeber will return to burn the Jews what killed him. The occasional pretense to conservation goes against the grain of everything else they preach. It’s the biggest tell that they are shivering blobs of mental illness.

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coozledad said on November 11, 2013 at 3:35 pm

And that reminds me, mental illness will now be covered under the ACA!

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 3:38 pm

I’ve had a heck of a time finding good looking walking shoes, and have given up on trying. Right now my favorite, most comfortable are made by Ecco, and the line is called Biome, they make a bunch of different styles within the line. I usually get the simplest black ones I can find. I also need ankle support so some of the time I wear my Y3 (Johji Yamamoto/ Adidas) combat type boots that lace up to midcalf. They have a cushy neoprine sole. I use orthotic inserts in both of these shoes and they really make a difference but are not cheap ($75) but you can use the same inserts in multiple shoes. I’m also borderline for oesteoporosis so my Dr wants me to wear ankle weights when I walk, which I don’t want to do because I like walking fast and light on my feet.

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 3:43 pm

That’s Biom not Biome.

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 3:51 pm

I should add that for hiking in New Mexico, I wear completely different shoes, very sturdy hiking boots that I have no idea what brand they are. I bought them in Taos and I’m in Chicago now not Santa Fe where I keep them. So I can’t look at them to see who makes them. They’re great boots, very comfortable and super sturdy. The hiking boots I had before these lasted more than 20 years. These could beat that.

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Prospero said on November 11, 2013 at 4:03 pm

Jeff@42: One way or another, threatening to kill someone if they don’t pony up $15grand for a Vegas jaunt for you and your redneck buddies is black letter extortion, and Incognito should be awaiting a trial in some Dade Co. correctional institution. That’s not bullying, that is undoubtedly criminal behavior. Even FLA has a terroristic threats law, which the redneck troglodyte clearly violated. Lock his ass up.

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Prospero said on November 11, 2013 at 4:09 pm

Now this is some good news. Now if Amazon would just stop using styrofoam packing materials. USPS provides better service than FedEx or UPS for considerably less money. Always has.

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brian stouder said on November 11, 2013 at 4:28 pm

pros – that IS good news…and you just know what that means!

when this plan WORKS, it’ll just go to show how UNFAIR it is for real bidnesses to have to compete against Uncle Sam, dammit to hellfire!

That Obammy is jes a big ol’ socialiss (whatever that is), and that’s BAD!!

When Guhmint don’t work, we need to hack it, and when it DOES work, it shouldn’t!!

(apologies to Cooz – who could say this much better!)

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coozledad said on November 11, 2013 at 4:28 pm

Does it count as slut shaming when you’re shaming someone(plus her husband) for being a bigass Bush administration department of misinformation juice sluice?

I love my Kindle and have been reading more because of it. When I’m reading on it, I forget that it’s not a book and try to turn the page.

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coozledad said on November 11, 2013 at 5:01 pm

brian: given the eleven embassy slayings that occurred during Bush’s term, I was wondering why the republicans banked so heavily on Benghazi Benghazi!!!

They seem to believe it could have swung the election toward a messianic preppy sadist, and still don’t get that most people would not want to have a beer with a guy who 1. Does not drink beer, and 2.Would not only fire your mother, but would shear her hair off and kick her in the belly.

By the time Issa had dragged the house into its second round of hearings, I was wondering if they could help it blow up in their own faces any more. This is legislative misconduct under the auspices of Blackwater and KBR. Simple fucks can’t even do their crime right.

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Danny said on November 11, 2013 at 5:15 pm

Wow, so the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) wants to pilot an anti-piracy curriculum in California public elementary schools.

Sherri@62: There are plastic peanuts on our kitchen floor right this minute from an Amazon package. Those damn things are hell to clean up, not to mention having a half-life in the vicinity of plutonium.

I seem to remember that everything people claimed about the Selectric type balls to show that the documents on AWOL W were fake was an absolute crock of crap. And I used those suckers for years before I got hold of my first Burroughs WP. I could do magic with them cutting and pasting. The big claim was that they didn’t have 1/4 and 1/2Keys. The Letter Gothic balls most assuredly had those single characters. Total fabrication. As far as the claims about line registration, I found it easy with practice to match any existing typing. More lies. Bush definitely went AWOL on a coke binge for several months in Bummingham ALA. I know people tht witnessed his profligacy while he was supposed to be guarding the Officer’s Club. And the civilian clerk that would have preppared the documents vouched for their authenticity. GOPers were making up bullshit about that as fast as both sets of lips could move on both sides of their faces, compounded by lying like adders about Kerry’s service. A really sad chapter in American politics.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 11, 2013 at 6:19 pm

Just got back from a finance committee meeting for our two-county mental health & recovery board (in Ohio and neighboring states, they’re often called ADAMH boards, more of which are going to MHR as a designation in public materials). We’re nervously doing the numbers for 2014 assuming Medicaid Expansion is going forward here, even though there are legal challenges. The Kasich admin has helped ensure a rocket docket path so we should [crosses fingers] have certainty by Jan. 1, but we can’t wait until then to start moving programs and people forward.

What folks here, whatever political persuasion, will find interesting is that we are in line with much of the country — some 65-70% of people coming forward in JFS offices or online are not getting an ACA policy with subsidies, they’re qualified for Medicaid as formerly defined, and long were qualified. They just hadn’t come forward to enroll. So that’s going to make the numbers interesting, as the traditional Medicaid outlays will increase. That’s what we were told privately back in ’97-’98 when we were pushing CHIP through state legislatures: there was no real objection to CHIP or the costs of that, it was the knowledge that current Medicaid rolls then (and now) were around 60% of the total population estimated to qualify.

That’s the main resistance to Medicaid Expansion today in those 25 states that have declined — they’re not sure how they can handle all the current medicaid eligible people when they come forward under tax penalty pressure.

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Prospero said on November 11, 2013 at 6:22 pm

Today is the anniversary of Prince’s release of the scintillating double album 1999. An astounding piece of art, especially the the sublimely salacious Little Red Corvette.

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coozledad said on November 11, 2013 at 6:46 pm

Where’s that beatitudes Jesus when you need to flog ‘im.

All that spendin’ on the pooors! Begob.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 11, 2013 at 6:56 pm

I’m posting this because it’s a good speech echoing Keating’s great one, and because I think we might all have a fair amount of agreement around it.

Well, Cooze, all I can say is I’m working my ass off to get Medicaid expansion through in Ohio. And I think we’re gonna get there. What to do about Florida, I don’t know.

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4dbirds said on November 11, 2013 at 8:13 pm

Won’t use unisex bathrooms. The lab toilet at the VA is unisex. I take my specimen cup out of the lab to the women’s restroom and bring it back. Men are bad shots and quite frankly a lot of their bathrooms smell.

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Deborah said on November 11, 2013 at 9:10 pm

Before the day gets away from me, I salute all of you veterans out there. I’m grateful that you did what you did.

Muck Woody Maxes for me this time of year, but I don’t walk far. Cabela’s or Hi-Tec generic hikers otherwise; the city parks dept. is just finishing a greenway behind our house, and I mean right behind, 35 yards from the porch rail.

My house and the three just east of it are the closest to the river in our neighborhood, the same river that went twenty-some feet over flood stage three years ago, and even before the flood the easement for the greenway had eroded out into thin air; we sure as hell weren’t going to sell access, so the city had to follow the easement along the riverbank then build about a 75-yard boardwalk out over thin air just to provide a place to walk until the easement came back on solid ground. Still some hard feelings over it, but as my dad used to repeatedly mutter to himself when he’d had a few, piss on ’em all.

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basset said on November 11, 2013 at 9:45 pm

And… went straight from work to get the Beatles’ “Live at the BBC Volume 2” when it went on sale today, playing now. Wonderful stuff.

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Dexter said on November 11, 2013 at 9:46 pm

Thanks, Deborah…we did it for you…and, of course, because back in my day we had to do it, or go to jail as draft dodgers.
When I came back from Vietnam, I was already in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War; we did raise a little hell around Fort Wayne, including crashing the Veterans Day parade in 1971 with our huge banner (we were denied permission to march, can you believe that?) We had no idea what might happen…arrested somehow?…but the people there on the street curb on that cold night (yes, the parade was in the cold November night) stood up and cheered us like we were Turner Cup champions or something. That was a night I’ll never forget.
It was many years before I could see the big picture and understand that patriotism and love of country is a righteous and proper emotion. In 1971 I was just so angry about so many aspects of the whole American involvement in Vietnam. It just took time for me.

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Dexter said on November 11, 2013 at 10:26 pm

Miley C breaks out a spliff and fires it up over in Amsterdam after twerking with a dwarf and no-bod-ee gives a flying fuck. She is not news.
I never saw a joint the size of the one Sal and Dean bought in Mexico in the movie “On the Road” which I just watched on Showtime. Big enough to blitz an army.

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beb said on November 11, 2013 at 10:46 pm

Charlotte @29: I was appalled when Nancy wrote that a woman knocked on her door wanting to use her bathroom – AND SHE LET HER! That sounds so much like a pretext for a home invasion. People knocking on doors after dark are frightening. Still I can imagine that the man would shoot someone just because. But it’s like the black man injured in a car accident, knocking on a door for help and getting killed by cops because they thought he was a home invader. Whether or not one is safe where one lives, the world has gotten crazy about black criminals.

Deborah @32: I like reading physical books, too. There are books all over the house. My wife, though loves her Kindle, so it takes all kinds. My comment to you was based on the impression that you were having one of those rainy afternoon with nothing to read, and not willing to drive to a bookstores. I was just suggesting that one never has to feel desperate since there’s always something at Project Gutenberg. I’ve been known to print out a story from PG before reading it because I’m so accustomed to holding something.

Danny @36: I saw that article on Slashdot as well but have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I’m sure fracking has depressed oil prices world wide but I thought Iran was still under an oil embargo so some time and that has been grinding the nation down. And with the election of a new Prime Minster there was a desire to try to open up some trade to relieve the suffering of Iranians. I could be wrong on this. And am willing to believe that fracking’s impact on oil sales has some impact on Iran’s willingness to negotiate.

Jeff @42: Think of Martin and Incognito was battered wife scenario. Just because they exchanged thousands of texts doesn’t mean that Incognito was bullying Martin. Martin was making a lot of money playing football; surely he would put up with a lot to continue making that kind of money, and making an effort to get along with the bully. That he decided to walk away from all the money left on his contract says that this was a serious situation. What kind of sad it how the industry seemed to have grouped behind Incognito, with no sympathy for Martin.

Danny @61: The MPAA! ugg! Just once I’d like to see some defendant ask that the MPAA prove in court exactly how much they love to piracy. And for such a stricken industry they sure do seem to make a lot of money each year.

Danny @64: It was more like six months from Rather’s report and his firing. But in addition to Rather three or four people up the food chance were also let go and CBS’s publishing arm, Simon and Schuster formed an imprint for conservative book with Mary Matalin. Matalin’s imprint was to be the publisher of the discredited Benghazi. To date no one has been canned for the false Benghazi story, CBS has only admitted to embarrassment. Details here:http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-did-mary-matalin-get-publishing.html

When I saw the CBS Benghazi story I thought then that something was fishy. I thought at the time that the story was just 60 Minutes jumping to have a me-too story consistent with what was becoming the party line. It did not surprise me even a little when I heard what passed for an apology from 60 Minutes. It also does not surprise me even a little that they did not bother to try to confirm the story. The usual process is to get someone to tell a reporter something, and then to report that alone as the story. It’s too hard to try to dig up anything else; just pass off “so-and-so says this” as reporting.

Most of the time TV news is not news. Locally it’s shootings, fires, and auto wrecks. You may have heard of the young man who went into a school in the Atlanta area with a gun, but was talked out of shooting anyone by a member of the school staff. He fired his rifle and police fired, but he had said he wasn’t there to hurt anyone. Still, local TV news called it a school shooting. Can’t let Atlanta fall behind in the school shooting race, you know.

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basset said on November 11, 2013 at 11:25 pm

Bet he had a semi-automatic assault rifle, too…

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Brandon said on November 12, 2013 at 12:57 am

One of the side benefits for these grossly evil fucks is the commodification of potable water, which will ultimately be much more precious than automotive fuel, or fuel to warm up some fat arse while it lounges in front of a tube.